The invention concerns a method for optimizing a link to a first network page of a first server which is displayed on a second network page of a second server, wherein                the second network page is requested by the second server using a client associated with a user;        the second network page is transmitted to the client by the second server;        the user activates the link displayed on the second network page.        
The invention also concerns a computer system comprising a first server, a second server, a client associated with a user, at least one link to a network page of the first server which can be displayed on a network page of the second server, and a communications network which provides communication between the first server and the client and between the second server and the client; wherein                a network page may be requested from the second server via the client;        the second network page can be transmitted to the client via the second server;        the link shown on the second network page can be activated.        
Moreover, the invention concerns a computer program which can be run on a computer, in particular, on a server.
A computer which is connected to the communications network is e.g. called a server and runs software to enable the server to provide certain services. These services may be e.g. providing information or resources (e.g. storage space, calculation capacity or access to a communications network).
The services are typically used by a so-called client. Towards this end, the client transmits a request to the server using a communications network, e.g. the Internet. The server evaluates the incoming request, optionally checks whether the client is authorized to issue the request and transmits information in correspondence with the request or provides the required resources.
Information is often provided by a server to a client in the form of so-called network pages (also called Internet pages or briefly pages).
To describe the content of a network page, a language describing the page is used. The standardized page-describing language HTML (Hypertext Mark up Language) is mainly used today. HTML permits simple description of the content and appearance of a network page in a so-called HTML document. If a client requests e.g. information from a server, the server transmits a HTML document containing the requested information to the client. If the information transmitted to the client via the HTML document is to be displayed to a user, the network page or the HTML document is transmitted to a special computer program (so-called browser) which can interpret HTML documents and display them on a computer monitor using a graphic interface.
The network pages transmitted by the server to the client may already be generated before the client's request and be stored at a suitable location. Such network pages are called static network pages.
Often, a client will place a specific request to the server such that the network pages containing the requested information are dynamically generated by the server. This is the case e.g. when a user uses the client to transmit a request in the form of a search term to a server designed as search engine. The search engine gathers information, which is associated with the search term, in accordance with a predeterminable algorithm on the basis of the search term. Depending on the determined information, a dynamic network page is automatically created by the server and transmitted to the client.
A plurality of clients and servers communicate via the Internet and together form a multi-media information system, the so-called www (world wide web). Network pages available within the www can be addressed via an URL (Uniform Resource Locator). A URL is composed i.a. of the name of the server providing the network page, a register and a name associated with the network page. A URL permits direct selection by a client of the network page associated with this URL. Towards this end, a user enters the URL into a specific input field of the browser e.g. using a keyboard. The client subsequently generates a request to the corresponding server which then transmits the requested network page to the client.
URLs of further network pages or HTML documents can be mentioned within an HTML document. Such URLs are called links or hyperlinks (briefly: link). Links shown on static network pages are referred to below as static links. Analogous thereto, links shown on dynamic network pages are referred to below as dynamic links.
If links are displayed to a user via a browser, the user can select a displayed link and have the network page displayed which corresponds to the selected URL. The selected network page may, in particular, also be located on another server.
A second server is often instructed by a first server to provide a link to a network page of the first server via network pages which are transmitted by the second server. Such a link may e.g. be a so-called advertising banner which advertises a product or services offered by the first server which can be obtained via the first server using a written and/or graphic representation. The link shown on the second network page is thereby typically associated with text, sound and/or graphic elements which are displayed to the user using the browser. The term “link” therefore also comprises the entire information associated with the link.
A product may also, in particular, be information offered by the first server. The product may moreover be an access to a protected storage region provided by the first server, which contains further accessible information. Such information may e.g. be news, stock market prices, as well as other text, sound or image data.
The information transmitted by the second server to the client is often distributed on several network pages, wherein only one first network page is initially transmitted to the client. The client then successively requests one of the further network pages from the second server.
If the second server is a search engine, the first server can instruct the second server to display a link to a network page associated with the first server on a network page generated in dependence on a search term entered by a user.
Under usual circumstances, the higher the number of links which are displayed on a network page transmitted to a client via a second server, the larger the amount of network page data to be transmitted. This increases the load on the communications network. This is further increased if, due to the plurality of links, several network pages are transmitted to the client via the second server. Moreover, a network page containing one or several links requires more storage space on the transmitting second server as well as on the receiving client.
In particular, if the second server is designed as a search engine, the information which is generated by the search engine in dependence on a search term transmitted to the server by the client, consists of a list of links to network pages which are provided by other servers. To increase the relevance of the information and links provided by a search engine in response to a request, this information, links and search terms are conventionally classified through computer linguistic methods and these classes are mutually associated. The search engine selects suitable information and links through association of classified search terms and information on the basis of a search term received by a client.
The number of requests answered by a server depends i.a. on the amount of network page data which is transmitted per request by the server to the requesting client. Static network pages must be read from a storage e.g. by the server. To generate dynamic network pages, the respective content (information) must be read out of the storage and be integrated into the network page. The network pages are then processed in dependence on the layers of a network protocol used for data transmission (e.g. TCP/IP). This means, the larger the amount of data for a request to be transmitted by a server, the lower the available performance of the server for further, imminent requests.
The network pages are transmitted by the server to the client using the communications network. The amount of data which can be transmitted by the communications network per unit time is thereby limited.
The client initially processes a received network page in dependence on the network protocol used and stores the network page in a suitable storage region. The browser will subsequently process the network page such that the information can be displayed on a monitor.
To minimize load on the calculation power and the storage capacities of the server and of the client, and to relieve the communications network through transmission of a minimum data amount, it is desirable to only display links on the network page generated by the search engine which are actually of interest to the client or the user.
The second server typically tends to display the most recent links on its network pages. Since the second server generally charges a fee for displaying the links to the network pages of the first server on its network pages, the first server tends to only permit display of a limited number of links on the network pages of the second server.
To minimize load on the calculation performance of the server and of the client, and on the transmission performance of the communications network and permit optimum utilization thereof through reduction of the amount of network page data, it is therefore the underlying purpose of the invention to only permit display of links or appropriately designed links on a network page of a server which are of interest to a client or user.